


Inferno

by Wolf_Stevens



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10012340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_Stevens/pseuds/Wolf_Stevens
Summary: Based off of the song and music video Far Away by Nickelback. Emma Swan is a firefighter and is called away from her new bride Regina to fight a raging wildfire, where she nearly leaves Regina a widow.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own OUAT or its characters, nor the song Far Away (that one is all on Nickelback)
> 
> This work is very raw written as I did it late at night and didn't sleep until I finished it. Any and all mistakes and feelings like the work is rushed are mine.

“Emma Marie, you give that remote back right now!” Regina laughed as her wife held the remote for the tv away. The blonde just stuck out her tongue and tried to roll away but Regina was faster and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her back down onto the mattress.

“If you wanted me on top, Regina, all you had to do was ask,” Emma’s husky voice purred as she tossed the remote across the bed and lowered her lips to Regina’s neck. Regina let out one of her rare giggles before a gasp took her breath away. They had gotten married about two months earlier and though they had been together for five three years prior things never felt like they were leaving the honeymoon stage of their relationship. Emma’s hand creeped under Regina’s camisole, teasing olive skin on her abdomen. Emma’s lips had just found the hollow at the base of her throat when a phone started buzzing.

“Leave it,” Regina gasped as Emma started to pull away. She felt the smirk against her skin as lips reattached and the buzzing stopped, then started up again. “I said leave it,” Regina repeated, running her hand into long blonde locks.

“What if it’s Chief though?” Emma asked, her lips trailing up her neck as her hand crept up and caressed the underside of Regina’s breast.

“He can call your-mmmm-your work phone.” Regina arched into the ministrations as the buzzing stopped. She let out a long moan before Emma’s work phone started ringing shrilly. Emma hastily pulled away and reached over to answer it, much to Regina’s displeasure. She watched her young wife’s face go from annoyed to concerned to serious all in a matter of seconds, and she knew their play time on a weekend that they both were supposed to have off was done for.

“Babe, I gotta go,” Emma said as she hung up from the call, turning to look at Regina. She could see the regret in Emma’s green eyes as she explained. “The wild fires are getting out of hand and everyone around is being called in to help.” Regina gave her a sad smile. She knew what being with Emma had entailed before she even married her. Emma’s job as a firefighter meant she had to rescue kittens from trees and put out raging wild fires like the one she was getting called to now. Regina climbed from the bed and helped Emma grab a change of clothes to pack in her go bag as well as made sure she had her fire gear.

“I’ll call you with updates if I get the chance,” Emma said as she and Regina hugged on the front porch of their little country house. It had been a simple prefabricated house, but It was what the couple had decided to buy a year earlier to call their own. It sat on about an acre of land, perfect for if they decided to start a family. All around them were sparse trees and fields, and about a mile to the south and wrapping towards the east was a river. It was towards the southeast that the fires raged, and though they were a good thirty miles or so away you could still smell the smoke in the air. It had been started by some teenagers playing with fireworks in the dry woodland that had started it nearly two weeks earlier.

“Be safe, please,” Regina pleaded. “Come back to me.”

“Always,” Emma said, giving her a smile before kissing her soundly. It was a promise Emma and Regina knew she may have to break one day, but if it could temporarily set Regina’s mind at ease she was more than willing to feed into it. The sound of tires crunching on the gravel as the black pickup truck pulled into the horseshoe-shaped driveway pulled the young lovers apart. “I love you Regina,” Emma said before giving her wife another chaste kiss, then bent down and grabbed her bag.

As she turned to go, Regina grabbed the heavy fire jacket and turned her to give her another crushing kiss. Something in the brunette told her that she might not see her for a while. The beeping of the horn finally broke them and Emma, eyes full of sadness for leaving her wife, cupped her cheek for the last time in a while. “I love you too,” Regina said as Emma pulled away and jogged to the truck, tossing her bag into the bed and hopping into the cab where her squad mate David sat behind the wheel. Regina stood watching as the truck pulled away, gravel flying behind it as they sped off. Her heart thudded heavily as she turned the gold wedding band on her finger, eyes lingering after the vanished truck.


	2. Chapter 2

Emma hated leaving Regina, but she had a job to do. The safety of others was what she needed to accomplish, and as long as she succeeded in her job she got to go home to her new wife. As David pulled into the scene they grabbed their helmets from the bed and ran to where a fire chief was giving folks directions. Emma, David, Killian, and Neal were tasked to be air dropped into one of the areas closer to some homes to create a fire line. They grabbed their complete outfit, slipped them on and headed for the chopper that was coming in to take them.

As they landed they were greeted by another fire department that had their water trucks on the scene, trying to soak the land. It had been a dry month so far though, and the woods and surrounding area were fresh kindling for the raging inferno. Emma tried her best to keep the heavy sweat from the heat out of her eyes, but every time she wiped her face fresh soot marked her.

They worked together to pull hoses and dig, spending a good three days together thinking they were making progress against the fires. It was on the third day though that the winds changed, blowing the previously recceeding fire back at them with gusto. They tried the best they could to stay ahead of it, but when several trees started to fall and pop from the heat, the lieutenant told them they needed to pull out.

“Emma!” Killian shouted to the blonde as she rolled hoses up as best as she could in haste. “Emma!” The frantic tone in the brunette’s voice made the blonde turn to her squad mate.

“What is it Jones?” she asked.

“Have you seen Cassidy?” he asked, concern in his eyes.

“Is he with Nolan?” Emma asked, fear starting to pool in her stomach.

“No, he hasn’t seen him.” Both fire fighters looked out into the woodline that was ablaze. “You don’t think…”

“I’m going to go check,” Emma jumped into action, grabbing a scuba tank and mask. Killian grabbed her arm.

“Swan, don’t be a fool,” he stated. “We were given the order to back out.”

“I’m not leaving a teammate in there,” she said, yanking her arm back. “He could be hurt.” As if to back her words a young tree popped somewhere nearby. “I’ll grab a radio.”

“Damnit, Swan,” Killian cussed as she made sure she was equipped and ran towards the flames.

“Where is she going?” the lieutenant of the department they were working with asked the brunette.

“We’re missing a man, he may be in there.” The lieutenant called the order for everyone to keep the trucks packed but they were going to stay until Emma returned, hopefully with the missing teammate.

Emma walked as carefully as she could through the burning trees and grass, calling out Neal’s name. She could taste the salt and soot as sweat rolled into her mouth. She checked in on the radio back to the squad waiting on her frequently. It was hard to see though through the smoke that rolled off of green plants as they burned. After fifteen minutes of searching she could hear the telltale sound of a fallen fire fighter’s scuba alarm going off faintly.

“Neal!” she screamed out, her voice slightly muffled by her oxygen mask. She tried her best to follow the sound and found him laying on top of a fallen tree. She knelt next to him and checked as best as she could for his vitals, determining that he was still breathing before slipping off her mask and applying it to his face. “You just have to be a pain in my ass, don’t you?” she muttered as she bent to put him over her shoulders so she could carry him out of the fiery inferno surrounding them. Her breathing and steps were labored, what with Neal originally being bigger than her to begin with, but once you added all the gear he had on to protect himself as well as her own gear, anyone would have a tough time with the motions. She could feel the winds shift across her bare soot ridden face and fear crept into her stomach. Black smoke started filling the area in front of her, and she could hear the frantic voice of the lieutenant on her walkie, but before she could respond she heard a loud pop. She turned in time to see a tall pine tree falling straight for her, it’s needles crimson and yellow and rolling black smoke as they burned.


	3. Chapter 3

Regina couldn’t help but flip through the news stations, trying to glean any information she could about the fire and the progress to stop it. When she reported back into work at the financial firm she was employed at on Monday, she made sure that she had a news app up on her phone. She may have been physically at her office, but mentally she was worried about Emma.

When she got home on Tuesday her first action was to turn on the tv. It was then that she saw the news reports that two fire fighters went missing. The station she had initially turned on didn’t say much more though, so she quickly turned to another. It was that one that released the names of Neal Cassidy and Emma Swan as being missing in action in the fight against the fires.

Fear and panic gripped Regina so hard she collapsed to her knees along Emma’s side of the bed. “No,” she pleaded quietly, her voice increasing in volume until she erupted in sobs. She struggled to get air as she fought the thoughts that Emma was dead somewhere in the raging inferno. She barely acknowledged at first that her phone was ringing, but when it started ringing a second time she quickly grabbed for it, hoping to see Emma’s name on the caller id. Instead she saw that it was Emma’s fire chief, Robin Locksley. She answered it with a shaky hello.

“Regina, I’m so sorry,” the man apologized, making the panic and fear rush right back to all time heights.

“Please don’t tell me she’s dead,” she pleaded.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just found out that one of the stations was announcing their names as being missing even though they weren’t supposed to. I want you to know that we are doing all we can to locate them.”

“How long have they been missing?” Regina asked.

“About a day now. Emma was going to find Neal and when the winds changed the team she was with lost all contact with her.”

“Oh god,” Regina sobbed into the line. She could hear someone talking in the background to the chief.

“I’ve got to go, but I’ll try to keep you updated.” Before Regina could say anything the line went dead and she was left to sob to herself, unsure of her wife’s fate.


	4. Chapter 4

It was nearly a week after Emma had been called out that the tides had changed for those fighting the fires. A heavy rain moved in and quenched most of the fires being fought. There still was no word about Emma or Neal though. Regina couldn’t operate at work and her boss sent her home for the week. They all knew that she was a newlywed and that Emma was a fire fighter. Regina’s boss was a former fire fighter from the same unit that Emma was currently with, so he knew what the brunette was going through to an extent.

It wasn’t until that Saturday night, Regina had been sitting in the living room watching the news in the tee and joggers she took of Emma’s when she saw lights go across her walls. The only way that could happen was if someone had pulled into the drive. She got up and walked out onto her porch, trying to see into the night at who was there. Slowly three fire fighters lined up at the back of the fire company’s SUV, covered head to toe in soot and grime. She recognized them as being Chief Locksley, whom wore his dingy jacket but was only slightly cleaner than the other two, David Nolan, whom was in nearly full outfit minus his helmet, and Killian Jones, who was much the same as Locksley except he was dirtier. All three looked up at her with an exhausted look on their faces. She shook her head no. The only reason they would be coming to see her like this was if Emma was dead, she was sure of it. Her hand covered her mouth as tears gathered, threatening to spill.

All three men seemed to get the same small smile of victory though at the same time as they parted like the Red Sea, revealing a very grungy and scratched up Emma. Regina’s eyes went wide as her fear and panic gave way to relief and excitement. She rushed down the stairs as Emma limped forward, the brunette launching herself into the blonde’s arms. Her buddies stood behind her to keep her upright.

“Is it you? Are you really home?” Regina asked in disbelief, her chocolate eyes searching over the dirty face but landing on bright green eyes. Her hands grasped at the heavy dirty jacket covering her wife's frame.

“I’m home Regina,” Emma affirmed. “I told you I’d come back to you.” The brunette didn’t care that her wife was dirty, grimey, and gritty, she kissed her like there was no tomorrow for there almost hadn’t been for them. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”


End file.
